PITTSBURGH -- Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is an intelligent, well-spoken man who almost always has something clever to say at his weekly press conference. On Tuesday, he was in rare form.

When talking about Joshua Cribbs, the Browns' outstanding kick return specialist, Tomlin said "We cannot let Josh Cribbs do what he's done to us time and time again in the past. We've been dead Indians in his cowboy movie enough."

In 2007 during Tomlin's first season as coach of the Steelers, Cribbs went wild in a 31-28 Browns' loss at Heinz Field by returning one kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown and another 90 yards.

Cribbs and the Browns (4-8) come to town Thursday night for a game against the Steelers (9-3).

Other comments of note from Tuesday's press conference:

** "His hair is on fire" Tomlin said when asked about the way rookie cornerback Curtis Brown has excelled on special teams.

** "We have a bunch of guys with milestone-like things. We can't get consumed with that. If we do what we are supposed to do, I am sure we are capable of realizing all of those things. We can't lose sleep over that" Tomlin said when asked about Hines Ward needing 10 catches to reach 1,000 for his career.

** "Everybody has something that's a little ugly about their job," Tomlin said when asked about the hard hit that knocked the wind out of Antonio Brown in the fourth quarter Sunday.

WOODLEY'S "PITCH COUNT"

LaMarr Woodley's return to the starting lineup didn't last long. But it wasn't going to be a lengthy return anyway.

Woodley left Sunday's game at some point in the first quarter after he aggravated a hamstring injury that forced him to miss three games. But even if Woodley didn't re-tweak his sore hamstring, he wouldn't have played that much.

"Certainly, he was going to be on a pitch count," Tomlin said. "But he didn't log enough time for that to become an issue. But that's generally the case when you are talking about a guy coming off of an injury, whether it's LaMarr Woodley or anyone, particularly when the guys that are replacing them have played as solid as Jason Worilds has."

Tomlin said that he didn't necessarily view Woodley's leaving the game as a setback.

"I don't know if you want to characterize it as a setback at this point," Tomlin said. "I think that the (next few days) will provide that legitimate information for us. Obviously, he felt something, and he was mature enough to not do any further damage to it. We appreciate that. We will see if that provides an opportunity for us to put him in play this week."

PLAYOFF PICTURE

If the AFC playoff pairings were based on current standings, the Steelers would be the No. 5 seed and open post-season play in a wild-card game in Denver. The Broncos and Raiders share the lead in the AFC West at 7-5. But the Broncos have the tiebreaker edge over the Raiders.

The other wild-card game would pit the No. 6 seeded Bengals (7-5) vs. the Texans (9-3) in Houston.

The Patriots (9-3) and Ravens (9-3) are the top two AFC seeds at this time.